How to Make a Homemade Artisan Bread Recipe | Seriously the Best Bread Recipe Ever!

– Hey, chef Billy Parisi here. Thank you so much for stopping
by my YouTube channel. I really appreciate it. But today, you’ve came to the right place, ’cause I’m gonna show you how to make an absolutely delicious, simple
country loaf bread recipe. So be sure to hold on. When it comes to baking, you have to know that
it’s an absolute science. And maybe you’ve even heard
that before from others. I remember hearing it for the
first time in culinary school. And the reason that is, is because exact measurements are needed, or else things just don’t turn out. So the first thing we’re gonna do is measure up some bread
flour, or some 00 flour. It’s actually the same
flour that you would use in making pasta, and
it’s loaded with protein, which makes it nice and stretchy, or really, the gluten is
what’s helping do that, and lots of yummy air pockets, which bread should be loaded with. So what we’re gonna do is
simply transfer that to a bowl after we’ve measured it. And for a little bit of flavor,
a little bit of complexity, and, of course, a gorgeous, outer brown crust shell on our bread, we’re gonna measure out a
little bit of whole wheat flour, and this is exactly the same process that we’re doing with the bread flour. Measure it out to a exact gram amount. And be sure to use a gram scale, because that’s the only way
you can get exact measurements. Don’t use ounces. Don’t use measuring cups or spoons. Use a gram scale. Pour it into that bowl. And then we’re gonna
head over to the sink, and we’re going to temperature
gauge out some water. 98 to 100 should do it. We’re not looking for a quick activation, but more of a long activation. So over a few hours at lower temperatures, much lower than the 110 to
115 that maybe you’re used to is going to help activate
the yeast over time. So just like the flours, we’re going to completely
measure out the weight of our 98 to 100-degree temp water till we get to that perfect amount. And really, we just wanna
pour right into that bowl with the other flours in it. And no need for a wooden
spoon or a spatula. It’s time to get a little dirty, so roll up your sleeves and
get your hands right in there and mix everything. And the reason we do that is so you can feel the dough completely. You can sort of squeeze
it together or fold it. You just wanna make sure there’s
no dry flour in the bowl, and your hands are the only way you’re going to be able
to feel it, obviously. You can see it when you mix with a spoon, but you can actually feel it and make sure it’s incorporated
when you do it by hand. You’re gonna have the
stickiest hands on Earth, so be sure to figure out how
to scrape with the other hand. And next, you want to set
it, the bowl, on a towel. That’s just ’cause the
granite is really cold and you don’t wanna get
it too over temperature. And it’s gonna sit for about 10 minutes before we add in our salt, and sprinkle it over top. And in addition, we’re gonna
sprinkle over our yeast. And you want to fold that over and incorporate all the yeast
and salt as best you can. This is absolutely going
to takes a couple minutes. It’s obviously like a kneading process, but you’re using your hands. And it’s just so incredibly
important to get that yeast and that salt running through
that flour-water mixture. Dip your hands in a little bit of water, so the dough doesn’t stick to you. And really just keep
folding and squeezing. And you could do this sort of pincing or pinching sort of technique
that you see me doing here just to help squeeze everything together and really ingrain that yeast
and that salt into the flour. Like I said, you’re looking
at about four or five minutes of doing this until it’s
completely finished. And once you feel like it’s incorporated, we’re gonna throw a towel over it. And we’re gonna first let it
sit for about 15 to 20 minutes before we come back and we give
it a couple of little folds using our hands. And really, this is just to kind of help move the dough around a little bit. And you’ll see me
stretching out the dough. I mean, look at how great this is. Not to the point where it’s breaking, but just stretching it,
activating that gluten in there. You see the yeast starting to work. And you’re maybe looking at
about a two-minute process. Just sort of keep it at
the bottom of the bowl. And we’re gonna go ahead and
throw another towel on here, and let it sit for another
45 minutes to one hour. We’re not necessarily looking
for it to rise super high, but more just to help activate everything. So just like in the same process before, you wanna stretch out the dough, and fold it over a few times. Do not spend more than two
minutes on this process. You also don’t wanna overwork anything. But stretch it out, fold it over, and when you feel pretty good about it, we’re gonna throw a towel over it. And next, we’re gonna
let it sit for probably an hour and 1/2 to two hours, or until it’s almost tripled in size. We’re gonna set it to the side. We’re gonna sprinkle the
flour on a clean surface. And we’re simply gonna take
the dough out of the bowl. You’ll notice it’ll be a little sticky, but incredibly fluffy and light. You’ve never felt bread like this unless you’ve done this regularly. We’re gonna sprinkle on
a little bit of flour. And then we wanna fold
it over a few times, almost like in thirds as
you see me doing here. I know I’m not doing the best, but the flour is kinda
preventing me doing that. But just fold it over
until you get a nice round. You don’t want to over-knead
this at this stage at all. And sort of just cupping
your hands around it, and bringing them together underneath. You wanna form a round. And you will love this part. It’s almost therapeutic. Obviously, I just keep doing it. It feels so good on my hands. The bread feels amazing. And what we’re gonna do is set
it to the side a little bit. And then we’ve got a banetton, which is going to help proof our bread. I’ve got a circle one. They make oval shapes. And we’re gonna sprinkle it, like I said, with a little bit of flour, and we’re going to place
our dough right in there. And we’re gonna toss a towel over it, and we’re gonna let it proof
for about 45 minutes to a hour. We’re not looking for a crazy raise here, but just to get it up a little bit. Next, we’re gonna add a Dutch oven pot to an incredibly
hot stove at 475 degrees. You wanna do this about 30 minutes before it is time to
start cooking the bread. Once the proofing process is over, your oven is nice and hot, what we wanna do next is simply remove the towel from the bread, and we’re gonna tip it
over right into the pot. Just be careful. You don’t want it to hang
off the sides or anything. And just sort of maybe just smooth it out with your hand a little bit. Make sure it’s in there nice. Place the top right over the pot, and bake it in the oven
at that 475 degrees. You already got a nice, hot pot, so that crust has begin
to form right off the bat, for about 30 minutes. And then you literally just take it out and set it on a rack, or you can leave it the pot if you wanna brown it
a little bit further, and get that crust a little bit browner. I prefer to do it on a
rack for about 30 minutes. And then we’re gonna slice
it up and try it out. Okay, guys, we just finished
our country round loaf. It looks amazing. It smells amazing. I obviously couldn’t help myself. I got in there a little bit earlier. You can see the steam rising. And I mean, look at the light temperature. This is an all-day affair. We started at 9:30. It’s 4:10. You’ve gotta get yourself time. Even in the past when I’ve
made bread, I rush it. I let it sit for like an hour,
let the yeast get in there. It’s not enough time, you guys. It took probably three
hours and 45 minutes. Three hours to rise, 45 minutes to proof. Absolutely use that Dutch oven. It will help brown up your bread. It will keep it nice and moist. You can see the beautiful air pockets just, honestly, already in there. All of this, all of this bread, honestly, looks absolutely phenomenal. Let’s just give it a quick, little taste. (bread crunches) Yeah, it’s good, and you’ll love it. Be sure to sub my channel. Obviously, have a ton
of great videos here. A lot of top-down, a lot of two-camera. Thanks for your follow. I
got a lot of bread to eat. We’ll catch up with you later.

I see two method of adding the dry yeast, one is to add the yeast in warm water to make it active and the other is to add it dry to the dough. I wonder if you want a slower rise, would adding the yeast to the dough be more suitable for a slow rise to prevent overproofing? Looks great btw, still prefer sourdough over dry yeast bread for the flavour

I'm sure this turned out well, but I don't see why you don't (as I do successfully) add salt and yeast in a dry mix with the flour, then add water. I also would never use heated water, but then I ferment for 18+ hours. More than one way to skin a cat….

Well I have lots of cooking experience I have never really baked much so thought I would give it another try after taking a break for quite a while tried following this recipe exactly and ended up adding something like 80 – 120 grams more flour way too much water

No shots of the interior of the bread! What are you hiding, chef? But if you slow down the video, you can catch a glimpse (like a single blurry frame) at 7:24. Looks decent, maybe a little bit dense, but we call that "rustic" and this is a part whole-wheat bread. Shouldn't hide it. It's relatively easy to make an appealing exterior, but the real art is inside the crust. If we're going to judge the bread visually, the inside is more revealing than the outside. Personally I find this recipe a little too fussy for myself and not a standout among similar breads, but the proof is really in the taste. Looks like it's still a work in progress, though. It might really be something after two more years of recipe development. Maybe a higher rise, fewer steps, and perhaps a switch to cheaper and much more available bread flour since I don't think a simple Dutch oven bread like this needs the imported 00 flour. I have it because I make pizza, and they're very similar flours, but usually a recipe like this would developed more along the lines of King Arthur bread flour rather than Caputo 00. I'm going to pass on adding undissolved yeast and salt to already mixed dough and buying that fancy little basket unless it's convincingly explained to me why I need to do extra work. This recipe can be simplified. Judging by the shape of the finished loaf and the glimpse of the interior I'd say some experimentation could definitely world a superior rise and a nicer crumb. I'm surprised the top wasn't scored. Use a knife, razor, or as this guy definitely would, a lame (which is the specialty bread scoring tool bakeries use just for this task). Done correctly, scoring allows for more rising. Otherwise the top sets hard. If it's scored, the bread can continue to rise and push itself up.

My intuition is that this recipe was shared prematurely as the baker does not have that much experience. It can be improved and needs some tinkering, but I'm sure it's a nice slice of bread. Good ingredients and tools and I sense enthusiasm. I would eat your bread, but I'm not convinced to make it.

I got everything ready for two loaves but started way too late. About midnight I placed both in bannetons, covered and set in my fridge. Seven hours later I pulled them and baked both in a Lodge pot. Fantastic!

I made this bread today! Turned out tastey. My crust was super leathery and tough, no crunch to be had, but otherwise I think I did it right. I look forward to trying it again and thank you for making this so accessible!

i’ve been watching and reading bread recipes all day and this is definitely the most elitist one i’ve seen yet. not bad, like at all, but my clumsy distracted ass is too inexperienced for these thoughts… the aesthetics do work for me though. anyways! good job!

I tried this recipe yesterday. The texture of crumb is for somehow gummy, chewy and rubbery. I’m trying to find out why. My dough looks a bit wetter than the video. Is it because the water ratio is a bit much for the flour I use? How much should I reduce? Or is it because my bread was under baked? Temperature was too low or not cooked long enough? Every oven is different.

Billy, many thanks for a great video. I have been making bread for about 10 years and have clearly been rushing things too much and perhaps using too much yeast. Your loaf looked amazing. Can I just confirm one thing. The temperature you suggest for the water I'm guessing that's in Fahrenheit and not Celsius.

Hi Chef … baked it… and was fantastic and tasty. One small problem for me though was the air pockets were relatively less. Probably it was because of the room temperature that the yeast did not grow well… should I leave it for additional time ? Great taste and great recipe

thanks for the recipe. I dont understand how your daugh not so wet and sticky as you use 80% hydration. After you finished the autolysis process the dough looked so dry. mine was sticky and wet all the way/

Thank you for the recipe I'm only 13 and I have been baking bread for the past 5 years I started with a inside oven and made a earthan oven about a year and a half ago thanks again and I'm going to try this recipe good bless you.

Why would you not just put the yeast and salt into the flour when you first mix it? Also mixing the salt and yeast together will create pockets of super salty water and kill the yeast via osmosis while you knead it in. You should hydrate the yeast, then add the flour, then salt, surely.

my goodness that's almost 800g of flour. that's about twice what i usually use. why is there so much flour? And why you not know some basics like dip your hands in warm water and the dough doesn't stick.

Hi Billy, wonderful video! As someone currently without a dutch oven but a strong desire to make this ASAP, do you reckon a large stock pot with a tight aluminum foil lid would be an adequate substitute?

Love your videos! Thank you for sharing awesome recipes.. ♡ I have a question! Why do you put yeast and salt after mix flour and water? Normally I put yeast and salt in the water first and mix flour.. is there any reason? Just super curious! Thanks again! 🙂 ♡

Made bread for the first time using this recipe and it was successful. Lots of holes in the bread which I like. I also added 1/2 a teaspoon of baking powder because someone at target told me it would give the bread holes. Not sure if that’s true but it worked. Thank you!

Hello! Would it be possible to make the bread with all-purpose flour to replace Flour 00? I am not living in the U.S and I'm not sure I'd be able to find this flour where I live. Thank you for your video 🙂

No honey. Its not an exact science. Thats in a lab. I bake in a kitchen. Without a scale. I use cups and teaspoons. At 72 Ive been doing this a long long time. I rarely measure and it turns out so good every time. Folding for two minutes is too long. No added flour on either the surface nor the bread. You make something fun a chore. No one likes chores.